India has been unanimously elected as the President of the UN-Habitat.

UN-Habitat, an organ of the United Nations’ Organisation reports to the United Nations General Assembly.

M Venkaiah Naidu will preside over the deliberations of the GC of UN-Habitat for the next two years.

Since its inception in 1978, it is the third time that India has been elected to lead this organisation.

N’Golo Kante wins award

N’Golo Kanté has been voted the 2017 Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers’ Association.

He will receive the prestigious FWA accolade, which has been awarded since 1948, at a gala dinner in London on 18 May when the association marks its 70th anniversary.

Kante is a French footballer who plays as a central midfielder for English club Chelsea and the France national team.

Konkona Sen Sharma wins award

Konkona Sensharma has been named the best director for her directorial debut “A Death in the Gunj” and the best actress for “Lipstick Under My Burkha” at 2017’s New York Indian Film Festival.

Onir’s film “Aaba” was declared the best short film at the festival.

K Kaladharan won the best actor for Malayalam film “Ottayaal n Paatha”

The film festival took place from April 30 to May 7.

‘Quality of water has improved’

The standard of drinking water in India has improved in the last five years but a lot of work still remains to be done, head of the World Water Council said.

It carried out a survey on water awareness in major parts of the world, including India.

The survey was done ahead of the 8th World Water Forum that is scheduled to take place in the Brazilian capital Brasilia in March 2018.

C919 makes its maiden flight

The Chinese built Comac C919 airplane has made its debut. It’s a major triumph for China, who has invested a lot to build up its civilian aerospace industry.

The programme was launched in 2008 and production of the prototype began in December 2011.

The C stands for “COMAC” and “China”, 9 means “forever” in Chinese, while 19 refers to its passenger capacity of 190 people.

Satellites used to count birds

Scientists have a new solution for counting endangered birds — using satellite images from space.

The research was conducted by the British Antarctic Survey and the Canterbury Museum in New Zealand.

This is the first time that satellites have been used to count individual birds from space

New way to turn methane into methanol

A new way to turn methane into methanol using water has been developed. This could help in to significantly cut carbon emissions by ending gas flaring at oil fields and create a useful chemical feedstock.

Methanol is a valuable source of industrial chemicals and over 30 million tonnes are consumed every year.

The research was conducted at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland.

World’s largest X-ray fired

The world’s biggest X-ray laser has generated its first light, paving the way for a new era of research in Europe.

The European XFEL laser is housed in underground tunnels inside a 3.4km-long facility at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron accelerator centre in Germany.

It can generate short pulses of X-ray light at more than 27000 light flashes per second.

CRPF command shifted to Chhattisgarh

The strategic anti-Naxal operations command headquarters of the Central Reserve Police Force has been shifted back from Kolkata to Raipur.

In 2010, the central zone command headquarters was shifted from Raipur to Kolkata owing to logistics and connectivity issues.

The decision comes after 25 CRPF troops were killed by naxals in Sukma.

India’s First Bio Refinery in Pune

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has inaugurated India’s First Integrated Bio‐refinery for Renewable Fuels & Chemicals for producing ethanol from a variety of biomass.

The plant is situated at Rahu in Pune district of Maharashtra. The demonstration plant has been built by Praj industries.

The plant is capable of producing 1 million litres of ethanol per annum.

Every day, since 1904, staff at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in Tamil Nadu have aimed their telescope at the sun, freezing the images of its disc.

This data, spanning a hundred years and more, has now been digitised by astrophysicists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, and made available to the public.

The data has been taken using different filters.

Jharkhand govt to tie up with Oracle

The Jharkhand government has signed a MoU with Oracle to enhance delivery of services to citizens as well as make the State more attractive for startups.

Oracle’s cloud services will be used to support the State by providing transparent governance.

A smart city will also be constructed in Ranchi.

Digital Africa

An Indian-African entrepreneur is planning to use the Digital India model in South Africa as a global case study to incubate innovative digital start-ups that will propel the continent towards faster growth.

Ramesh Awtaney is the founder and chairman of iSON Group, Africa leading IT conglomerate.

Awtaney has over 28 years of experience in global technology, market development and BPO.

Pakistan’s new envoy to India

Sohail Mahmood will be Pakistan’s new High Commissioner to India and is set to take charge at the end of this month.

Mahmood, now Pakistan’s Ambassador to Turkey, will succeed Abdul Basit.

Mahmood has served in Pakistani missions in Washington, New York, Ankara and Bangkok.

Tiger population up

The Tiger count in at least two of Assam’s four reserves has registered a growth since the tiger census conducted last year.

Manas National Park has recorded the presence of 30 tigers, while Orang National Park has put the figure at 28.

The tiger population is expected to reach 140.

Mars rocks to be turned into concrete

Civil engineers at the Stanford University have worked with colleagues at Nasa to develop a form of concrete that could be produced on Mars or the moon.

Since it is impossible to ship tons of cement from Earth to Mars, the best bet is for humans to start making it when they arrive.

The technique uses bovine blood to bind the materials.

Rabindranath Tagore birth anniversary

Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary was celebrated on May 7.

He was born on May 7 1861 and passed away on 7 August 1941.

His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India’s Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh’s Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for ‘Gitanjali’.

Dakota aircraft to arrive in India

Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s offer to the Union Government to hand over the 1948 made Douglas DC3 ‘Dakota’ Aircraft to the Indian Air Force has received clearances.

He had first made the offer to the UPA govt in 2009 but did not get any response.

After buying the aircraft from Ireland in 2009, he has now made the aircraft airworthy in London.

Cinnamon may cut heart disease risk

Researchers from US-based company OmniActive Health Technologies have found that Cinnamon may reduce the effects of a high-fat diet and risk of cardiovascular damage by slowing the fat storing process in the body.

Researchers fed rats cinnamon supplements for 12 weeks along with a high-fat diet.

They found that after 12 weeks the rats weighed less and were healthy.

‘Mission Sukma’

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh outlined ‘Mission Sukma’, which suggests use of air power to target Naxal leadership, along with continuous development work to eradicate the Left-wing extremism.